Ron Roetzel and wife, Lynelle, along with their children, Daniel, age 18, and Lydia, age 12, from Minnesota chartered the Topshotfishing team to do some deep sea big game sport fishing in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Today winds were out of the south at 3-10 mph, seas running 1-2 ft., temperatures in the high 80’s.

As the Roetzel’s boarded the boat, I asked if there was any species of fish in particular that they were hoping to catch, and Daniel’s answer was a Shark, so I mentioned that we will save some time for Shark fishing.

We started out trolling with two plainers down, one with a 3 ˝ blue reflector drone spoon and the other with a pink and blue sea witch in front of a double hooked Bonito strip. For surface baits we had four Bonito strips. Our first fish was a 10 lb. Kingfish caught by Lydia. From there I kept trolling off and on the reef catching 11 Bonitos, 4 Kingfish and one Mahi Mahi.

Now it was time for Daniel to do his Shark fishing. With little current, I positioned myself over one of our 34 artificial wrecks in Fort Lauderdale located in 340 ft. of water. We put down one Shark bait on the bottom, one midrange and one surface bait. I mentioned to Lydia that she had to call out the Shark for her brother, saying: Here Sharky Sharky!! Shortly after calling out to the Shark, a dorsal fin appeared as he was headed towards the surface bait – hooked up!!! The fun began as Daniel jumped into the fighting chair to do battle. After a thirty-five minute fight, the Hammerhead Shark was to the side of the boat, as our mate, Matt, brought the fish in for picture taking. Hook was removed and the fish was released to fight again.

As the family from Minnesota was accustomed to cold weather, they enjoyed the trip back to the dock in the a/c salon.